


A Mask For You

by poes



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, But A Lot Less Jovial, But Also the Love Interest?, Canon-Typical Violence, Cyberninja Hanzo Shimada, Hanzo is Batman, In This House Tomo and Kenji are the Dragon Names, M/M, McCree is a Weird Mix of Alfred and Robin, McHanzo Reverse Bang 2018, Mentions of Genji Shimada, Mentions of Satya Vaswani, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, Not That That's Important, Reaper is The Joker, Sombra is Catwoman, Unresolved Sexual Tension, superhero au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 03:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15855618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poes/pseuds/poes
Summary: Hanzo hums disapprovingly, and reaches over to take the mouse from Jesse, scrolling over to pull up the picture that had mysteriously appeared in Hanzo’s work email inbox only the day before.It’s in an alleyway adjacent to the Met. Brick walls are scored over in bright, fluorescent purple paint; a pixelated skull, and underneath it, the words EVEN DRAGONS SHOULD FEAR DEATH. It’s unsettling, to say the least, but also a clear callout. In some ways, it feels like a warning.---Sombra is a new villain on the scene with some dangerous allies. It's up to New York's resident hero, Dragonstrike, and his tech-savvy companion behind the scenes, Jesse McCree, to figure out what she's up to and stop it.Written for the McHanzo Reverse Bang 2018.





	1. If You Want a Partner

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everybody!
> 
> This is my second work for The McHanzo Reverse Bang 2018! This time, my partner was the lovely [MisterFrogEyes](http://misterfrogeyes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!
> 
> I had SUCH a blast writing this fic. I've always wanted to do something superhero-like with Cyberninja Hanzo, and this gave me a great opportunity to do just that! Frog was great about kind of letting me do what I'd like with their great art prompt, and I think we came together on a really cool plotline! I'm really happy with how this turned out, even though I'm a little late (oops), so I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> A huge thank you to the mods of the RBB discord; ya'll were great about this event and keeping it all organized. I appreciate you guys so much!
> 
> Art will be linked in the fic below and at the end of the fic as soon as Frog posts it! Make sure you give it a look; it's great and romantic and wonderful!
> 
> Thanks again! Without further ado...

“Position?”

McCree smiles into the mic. “Geez, you wanna ask me for dinner first?”

Hanzo’s voice, when it returns through the comm, is flat, but Jesse can hear the waver of humor beneath the surface. “Funny. As it always is. Every time you say it.”

“I can hear you laughin’.”

He taps his fingers against his punch cup as Hanzo hums quietly in his ear. "How about you answer my question, cowboy?"

"Mhm. Cowboy. That's a good position." As Hanzo gives an exasperated noise back at him, Jesse turns on his heel and inspects his surroundings, knowing he won't see Hanzo unless the man wants to be seen, but trying his best anyway. Almost like a game. "I'm down by the fruit punch, honey. Want me to grab you a drink?"

"I am not thirsty," Hanzo replies, just a touch too smug to be innocent. "And have a beverage, in any case. Hello."

Jesse flicks his eyes up toward the balcony at the greeting, knowing that his partner liked being up high with the kind of ease that was instinct at this point. Sure enough, he sees the sharp cut silhouette that approximates Hanzo Shimada, dressed to the nines and holding a glass of champagne as he looks down at McCree over the balcony.

The scion gives a gentle tip of his glass in recognition, and Jesse smirks back up at him, tipping his hat in answer. Hanzo sneers, straightening up again, and turning his head as if to toss hair that isn't there. Amusement plays across Jesse’s mouth. Hanzo’s still not used to the short, cropped haircut he’d gotten done only a week or so prior, clearly. _I am tired of having my hair pulled during missions,_ he’d groused, letting down his ponytail and frowning at Jesse in the mirror of their shared hotel room.

Jesse remembers advising against the cut, but, he has to admit, the spikes cresting his head now remind him a little bit of a dragon. Of course, he somehow manages to make it look good. Jesse’s pretty sure it’s not just his bias saying that; Hanzo’d been showered in compliments from his business associates the next day, and it absolutely hadn’t bothered Jesse even a little bit.

Still. He wonders if Hanzo thinks it’s worth it. Not that they ever talk about stupid, inconsequential stuff like that, really. Not unless McCree brought it up.

"Ugh. Do not remind me you are wearing that thing," Hanzo says now, but Jesse can see the smile still there, hidden behind his beverage. He grins, pressing his tongue between his teeth in a playful kinda way as he drags his fingers along the brim of his stetson again and lets out a low coo of offense.

"I look handsome," he argues, gesturing to himself and straightening his jacket so it tightens against his shoulders. He spreads his hands appealingly to his audience, and Hanzo smirks back down at him.

"And yet you would be so much handsomer without the hat," he says, regretful, cheeky. Jesse laughs quietly and Hanzo does in response, the two of them looking amusedly at each other for a moment.

"Still admitted I was handsome," Jesse adds after a moment. Hanzo's smile lingers for a few seconds before fading, and he peers at McCree over his glass. His eyes go more stern and contemplative as Jesse watches.

"Have you seen her?"

There it is. McCree internally sighs, gearing himself back up for the mission and shaking any lofty warm feelings from the inside of his chest back to where they belong; tucked far, far away in the back corner of his mind. Whatever this thing was between them, it would have to be put on hold. Just like it always was. "Nah. She seems more like she'd head for the big wigs up in your area. Chattin' up the fat cats."

"Are you calling me a fat cat?" Hanzo turns, the question almost off-handed, as he gives a sweep of the area in McCree's view. McCree smirks and takes a sip of his punch, letting the prompt hang just long enough that Hanzo turns to glare at him at the conspicuous silence. Jesse snickers.

“Fat cats are cuter than skinny cats,” he offers. “Like fat babies and fat… blunts.”

“Stop talking,” Hanzo barks back, with a wiggle in his voice that suggests he’s trying to sound stern. “Distracting. Are you even keeping an eye on your surroundings? What kind of consultant are you?”

“The kind that sees everything, sugar. Don’t you worry. Her name means ‘shadow’ for a reason, though. Don’t think she’s just gonna jump out and start singin’ Livin’ la Vida Loca.”

Hanzo’s frown is audible. “Is that a century-old reference? How unbecoming. And like you.”

“It’s only 80 years old! And a classic!” Jesse argues, and Hanzo snorts before downing the rest of his champagne.

“Ridiculous.” Hanzo turns and sets his glass on a passing omnic’s platter, easily taking another one up in his gloved fingers and cradling it in his palm. He holds it like everyone around him does, with the kind of practised, easy grace that came only from growing up doing something. Jesse hides his mild amusement as he bends his head and refills his own cup from the bowl.

“Besides, you _are_ a fat cat, Mr. CEO. Everyone wants to be your friend. How many times have you been hit on tonight?” Jesse reaches up to readjust his hat, quickly pressing his comm a little further into his ear with the motion. For no particular reason.

Hanzo hums. “Do you count drunkenly squeezing my arm, comparing it to a bowling ball, and then graciously volunteering to be the pins as hitting on me?”

“Absolutely. I didn’t say it had to be _successful_ hitting on.”

“Hm. Thirteen, then.” Hanzo wets his lips just audibly enough to make McCree jump a little in his skin. A glance shows him catching the last drops of his champagne. “But none by our esteemed guest. Perhaps I am not her type?” The way he says it implies he is sharing a private joke; _as if_ he would not be _everyone’s_ type. Preposterous. Jesse hates that he gets it and agrees. “What about you?”

McCree makes a thoughtful noise and begins making his way to the stairway leading upstairs, politely smiling at people as he passes by. “Nine. Most people don’t know why I’m here, ‘s the thing. All I can rely on is my dashing good looks, the occasional news-story reader, and the hat.”

“No wonder you are so far behind me, then.”

Jesse chuckles good-naturedly as he climbs the stairs, headed toward Hanzo with the subconscious grace of a man that knew how to casually move through a crowd. The archer is leaning against the balcony still, but with his back to the lower part of the room, half-empty glass nestled in his palm. He’s looking out one of the open double-doors leading out into a moonlit balcony; probably scoping out the area, of course, but...

He looks even better up close. Jesse slows his walking so he can take in the sight; the broad, sharp line of his nose, the bump in the bridge brought forth from the silver light coming in from the doorway. The gray running through his temples glows, as well; distinguished. Powerful. Wearing a suit only a man like him could pull off, tailor-fitted and sharp. Jesse resists the urge to whistle at him; Hanzo almost never responded to that positively. Instead, he just comes up beside him, leaning against the balcony to look down over the ballroom. If he lets their arms brush, neither of them say anything.

“The point of us both being here is to be split up,” Hanzo murmurs. He’s close enough that the words reach McCree without the comm, but the effect of being spoken to so softly and so directly in his ear isn’t lost on him. He also resists the urge to shiver.

These missions get harder every day. Being close to Hanzo nowadays is like standing next to a rose garden. It’d be so easy to just move closer, lean in and press his nose against the cologned curl of his throat, stop and take a minute to appreciate him like he’d really like to. Poetic thoughts of petals in tea and laid out on bedsheets spring to mind with the metaphor.

“Yeah, but we’ve been here an hour and ain’t seen her. Maybe four eyes searchin’ the same spot will be more effective than two in random places.”

“Your logic is muddied at best,” Hanzo replies with a scoff, not even tilting his head to acknowledge him.

Hanzo might be tempting as all get out, but the thorns he’s sporting are enough to keep even the most adventurous of florists right out of his way.

McCree gives a soft sigh and smiles to himself, shaking his head once. “Yeah, probably. Mostly just wanted to see how the new threads were working out.”

Hanzo does turn now, an eyebrow cocked. “You are eager over this invention.”

It’s the truth; even though Jesse’s lying a little bit, he really is interested in seeing how his latest product is working out for the man. He tips his head in as charming a manner as he can manage. “Yeah. If it works, a lotta things’ll be a lot easier for you. For both of us. You know how many times people have almost gotten off because we didn’t have the proper DNA?” He steps closer, into Hanzo’s more personal space. The CEO doesn’t flinch, just looks back up at him steadily, his lifted brow an easy curve.

“I _do_ know what she looks like, McCree,” he murmurs, but doesn’t protest as Jesse lifts a hand and places it gently on the forearm of Hanzo’s shirt.

He looks down into Hanzo’s face for a moment before blinking, activating the contact lense in his eye to display the readings Hanzo’s shirt is giving him. The thread reacts silently and inperceptibly to McCree’s hand, flashing up first a neat little blue line of ‘Joel Morricone, The Twelve O’Clock Headliner’.

After a moment, red text flickers after it. ‘Jesse McCree. Testing it on yourself again, huh?’

Hanzo continues watching him bemusedly the entire time, his lashes lowered halfway over brown-gray eyes. “Satisfied?”

“Now your gloves,” McCree replies sweetly, lifting a hand up by his shoulder. Hanzo’s lip twitches at the corner in exasperated amusement. He sets down the champagne on the balcony next to McCree’s punch, giving his companion a pointed look, before he lifts his own hand and presses it to McCree’s. Seamlessly, Jesse laces their fingers and begins guiding him toward the outdoor balcony.

Hanzo lets out a grunt, but doesn’t seem surprised, just follows along with a soft sigh. “McCree.”

“It’ll look less weird if we’re dancin’,” Jesse argues before the CEO can, and slides his other hand to Hanzo’s shoulder. The other man looks mildly satiated at the clear offer for Hanzo to lead the movement, and puts his hand on McCree’s waist as they face each other under the moonlight. “And we can look out over the garden out here. Maybe our shadow likes flowers?”

Demulcent disbelief lays over Hanzo’s features, but he just pulls McCree a little closer and begins quietly twirling them in a circle. “She does have a tendency to seduce targets, according to her file,” he muses, guiding them closer to the edge of the balcony and surreptitiously peering over the edge. “Flowers are romantic.”

McCree smirks, letting his contact lens flicker off again after a confirmation that Hanzo’s gloves are indeed working. He presses his luck. “You like flowers, Mr. Shimada?”

“Yes.” The older man flicks his eyes back up to McCree’s after another glance downward, looking almost defiant. “Everyone likes flowers. That is my point, Mr. McCree.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” McCree replies, easy and smooth, and lets Hanzo twist them around so he can look over his shoulder at the entrance to the balcony. “I’m fond of marigolds and honeysuckle, myself. Dandelions, too.”

Hanzo’s eyes return to him smoothly; he cocks a brow. “Not choices I often hear.”

“Marigolds are pretty… just always liked ‘em. And when I was a kid, I used to find a little bush of honeysuckle and pull out the, uh… the little part that went down the middle. If you pulled it out, the ends tasted sweet. Used to eat it all the time.”

Hanzo looks faintly amused, eyes searching McCree’s face like he’s trying to piece things together, but he just gives a soft hum before responding. “Somehow, that suits you.”

“I think that’s a compliment,” McCree replies, a smile curling his mouth. Hanzo’s face is mostly impassive, but the small cock of his brow belies his teasing.

“Think what you like.” Finally, a smirk twitches the corner of Hanzo’s mouth at the offended splutter Jesse makes in response. Hanzo’s low, throaty chuckle sends warmth curling around in his stomach like a cat getting comfortable. Helplessly, McCree starts swaying them a little more animatedly, letting Hanzo guide their movement but putting more of himself into the dance.

Hanzo notices; he looks up at McCree silently, but there is something in his eyes like perplexment. Jesse just hums and pull Hanzo a little closer; when Hanzo stiffens slightly under his arm, he makes a show of looking over the man’s shoulder, scanning the crowd behind him.

But once Hanzo relaxes again, getting used to the proximity, Jesse looks down at him once more, drawn like a moth to the flame, just as foolhardy. Hanzo is lit up with the lights from the surrounding city, yellow from inside the ballroom, a soft blue-silver from the moon, a contrast that paints him like watercolor. The music is smooth and slow, the tune familiar but unnameable, leaving a haze in the air between them. Hanzo politely pretends like he doesn’t notice McCree staring at him, like he always does, his gaze fixed somewhere under McCree’s throat. After a moment, the man gives a soft visible sigh and redirects his eyes over McCree’s shoulder.

He can’t do anything about this. Hanzo has responsibilities, the kind of job that makes him untouchable, unreachable, no matter how close Jesse is to him. No matter that they do the same thing, just from different sides of the screen; this thing between them hovers, unspoken and incorporeal. Hanzo lets him flirt, sometimes teases him back, but never lets it get past that, never lets the hold grip them too long. Any attempts to touch it are rebuffed. Cutting eyes like ice. The gentle step away from him. Once, a soft, heart-breaking little “McCree, no.”

It makes his jaw ache, looking at him like this, so goddamn gorgeous, made of marble, held in his arms, warm and real and strong, and still. Still there’s nothing that can span this fissure between them.

Hanzo still lets him hold him like this, though. Still looks at him sometimes and makes it feel like it matters. That’s maybe the most frustrating thing of all; that Hanzo watches him like he wants him, like he wants to touch this thing too, but won’t let himself. Nothing happens, no matter how tantalizingly close McCree can taste it.

The beast in Jesse’s chest won’t go to sleep, paces around and howls and claws every time Hanzo feeds it with a look, a touch, a breath against his cheek as he leans up to murmur in his ear.

[“You were correct. She is upstairs,” Hanzo says quietly, and brushes his lips against Jesse’s cheek as he withdraws, smiling indulgently like he’d done it for any reason besides the eyes on them.](https://78.media.tumblr.com/c693f8ca6f235a563b25c35ac06a5460/tumblr_ped2izG52J1xucm13o1_1280.png) Jesse’s frustration twists in knots in his gut, sparking with heat, but he just bends and presses his lips to Hanzo’s hair as they spin, giving him the opportunity to peer over his head at the woman.

Sombra is chatting with a balding older gentleman, a glass of champagne curled in her hand. She is wearing a simple, long black dress, elegant and accessorized in gold. Her hair is parted in such a way as to hide the augmentation along her scalp and neck, draping prettily down her back. She is charming, flirtatious, dangerous.

She’s new on the New York scene, but not new to the overarching game. Seemingly out of nowhere, a shadow had appeared on the streets beneath them. Jesse could trace her back to petty crimes, but nowadays she was pulling huge heists. There was no telling how much money she’d really stolen, and that was outside the jewels, cars, and other things of value that had also slipped into her grasp. Hanzo had reasonably had her on his radar, running as big a company as he did, but the fact that she had actually showed up here meant she was even bigger in the game than either of them had realized.

“Who is she speaking with?” Hanzo asks quietly, tucking his face into Jesse’s neck as a group of people pass them by, neatly both hiding his identity to prevent being spoken to and sending Jesse’s pulse spiking.

He keeps it tamped, letting his eyes rove over the man and flicking his contacts back on. Text appears over his vision in blocky blue. “Phillipe Navarro. Works as a curator at the Met. Hired in 2076… couple years ago.”

The people vanish around a corner, and Hanzo pulls back. “Hm.” He cocks a brow at Jesse, the question obvious. _A hit on the Met?_

“Wouldn’t put it past her… but there’s no tellin’. Could be now, could be later… could just be her chatting up someone. Can’t be sure.”

Hanzo hums quiet agreement, twirling them once more so he can look at the thief, dark eyes focused on her. “I doubt she is a lady to simply ‘chat up’ anybody,” he mutters, and Jesse makes his own assenting noise.

The current song playing ends, and while Jesse can’t be sure just how long they’ve been dancing, now’s the time it ends. Hanzo lets his waist go and steps back. Jesse lets him go, biting back any protest that might curl up on his mouth, and watches Hanzo walk inside the building again. “Take 3 o’clock,” Hanzo murmurs into his comm, and Jesse replies with a grunt, peeling off from his partner. He walks casually to the other side of the second floor, eyes roving but watchful as he does so. If she tries to make a break for it, for whatever reason, he’ll see it.

Sombra continues speaking with the curator, twirling a dark curl around her finger and laughing at something the man says. Hanzo approaches slowly, picking up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter with a polite nod. He looks as if he’s trying to make it to the steps on the far side of Sombra, make it back down to the far busier first floor. He passes by her, and strategically bumps gently into her back before stepping away again, lifting his hand in apology.

“Pardon me,” he murmurs in Jesse’s ear as Sombra turns to see who interrupted her conversation. Hanzo’s jacket sleeve had rubbed against the skin from her open-backed dress; McCree’s contact flickers with red text over his eye, cataloguing data, though predictably very little comes up from the databases he has it connected to. No criminal record; at least none she'd gotten caught at.

“Got it,” he breathes into his hand as he pretends to scratch his beard. Good.

However, Sombra stops him, her eyes widening and expression shifting as he realizes who Hanzo is. “Hanzo Shimada… _the_ Hanzo Shimada… they roped you into this, hm?”

Hanzo pauses in his retreat, and gives the fake chuckle Jesse’s heard him give so many other people when he was being polite. “A charity ball is a charity ball. If I am in the position to help, I do not mind coming to such events. Though I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mrs…?”

Sombra smiles at him, holding out her hand in a loose-wristed manner. “ _Miss_ Colomar. Olivia Colomar.”

Hanzo obligingly takes her hand and kisses the knuckles of it; Sombra seems delighted, her nose wrinkling in a smile that sets Jesse’s teeth on edge. _At least that’s more DNA._

“Ms. Colomar,” Hanzo hums, and then dips his head to the museum curator, as well, the image of poise. The curator’s attention is quickly grabbed by another passing woman, though, leaving Hanzo with Sombra.

 _Be careful,_ McCree doesn’t say, knowing Hanzo wouldn’t appreciate it.

“I have never seen you at one of these events before,” Hanzo continues, his voice dropping in pitch. “I would have remembered it.” The flirtatious tone makes something ridiculous and ugly twist in Jesse’s stomach; another thing to ignore. Hanzo wasn’t attracted to women. It was stupid to get jealous over it, no matter how convincing Hanzo sounded, he tells himself, and unlocks his jaw with some effort.

“Oooh, _and_ he’s a sweet talker,” Sombra trills on a laugh, bringing her hand to her throat and playfully fanning herself. “I have heard your reputation, Mr. Shimada… you have people all over the globe wrapped around your little finger. I can’t say I don’t see why, but it won’t work on me.”

Hanzo’s allure doesn’t drop. “You cannot blame me for trying.”

Sombra’s chuckle is charmed. “Oh, don’t stop. I like the attention, anyway.”

The two continue down the stairs together, Sombra wrapping her hand neatly around Hanzo’s bicep. Jesse watches from the second floor, pretending to be resting after his dancing. They had to be here another hour or two anyway, for appearances and pictures, though Jesse prays Hanzo doesn’t spend the rest of the night at Sombra’s side.

“So, what is it you do, Ms. Colomar? How did _you_ get roped into this?” Hanzo’s tone is charming and curious, belying none of his intent.

“Mmmh, I am not here on business; on a date, actually,” Sombra replies, lifting a finger to her purple-lipsticked mouth in a “shh” motion. “To Ms. Vaswani.”

“The CEO of Vishkar Tech.,” Hanzo replies, impressed. He and Vaswani were occasional partners in several projects. Jesse knew he considered her an acquaintance, at the least.

Sombra nods. “She got involved in a conversation with several colleagues that showed up with her, and well… I don’t understand all that techno-babble once they stop using words you and I use, you know? She’s very smart… very beautiful… but standing around and not talking bores me, yeah? I’ll still be going home with her,” she finishes with a flap of her hand, and points playfully at Hanzo, “so don’t try anything, mister.”

A quick contact check proves that Vaswani had indeed been invited to the event, though Jesse doesn’t immediately spot her when he looks around the ballroom. Of course, Vaswani didn’t really seem the type to dance, on the few occasions Hanzo had met up with her.

Checking for info on Olivia Colomar brings up, unsurprisingly, very little. ‘Olivia’ lived in New York, had an apartment, worked at data entry at some small name law firm. Jesse wasn’t expecting much, but it was worth a shot.

Hanzo laughs politely. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Ms. Vaswani is a lovely woman; I would not want to get on her bad side. Do you know where she might be? I would not mind saying hello before I leave.”

Sombra shrugs, the golden hoops hanging from her ears giving a little wiggle with the motion. “I’m not sure. She was upstairs last time I saw her.”

The answer is just blasé and plain enough that there’s no way to tell if she’s lying. McCree gives a frustrated grunt that Hanzo takes in stride.

The conversation twists and turns; Hanzo asks if she’s bid on any of the art up for sale, as was the ‘charity’ part of the ball. Sombra says yes, pointing out a piece that features a large black spider; for a friend. Hanzo answers her in-kind by pointing out several pieces he’s bid on. His favorite, he tells her, is the skyline piece of New York, meticulously detailed and classy as hell. It suited him perfectly, Sombra says, her smile coy and flirtatious.

This makes Jesse smirk, at least. He knows full well Hanzo’s favorite piece is actually the enormous painting of a sparrow being chased by a wolf; much less dignified, a little weird, but Hanzo has eyeballed it ever since they came in. He’d bid the most on that.

Ultimately, though, Sombra is clever. She dodges questions, redirects conversations, sends Hanzo running in circles. Hanzo is not so overt as to become obvious, but Sombra is not so suspicious as to be rude. They dance around each other, both poking and getting nothing in response.

Irritating, for sure, but they’d handled people like her before. Eventually they have nothing more to discuss. Hanzo begins excusing himself, wishing her a lovely evening, before a long-nailed hand on his arm stops him.

“Oh, Mr. Shimada?” Sombra tilts her head, eyes luminescent in the ballroom’s yellow light.

“Yes?”

“Before you go, I was just wondering. Have you heard of this masked man wandering the streets during the night?” She widens her eyes, the picture of amazement. “What are they calling him… was it… Dragon… Dragon…”

“Dragonstrike,” Hanzo finishes for her, and his voice doesn’t waver a millimeter, even as Jesse feels alarms blare in his head.

Sombra snaps her fingers. “That’s the one! Suuuper weird, eh? I heard he took out _Doomfist_ a month or so ago! Put him behind bars, life in jail, all that! Vigilante justice, you know?” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, watching Hanzo with eyes that are fox-clever. The music swells around them. “Can he really call dragons? Right out of his hand?” _Too_ clever.

Hanzo looks back at her impassively, polite as ever, but Jesse watches as he puts his heels together, something he only ever does when he’s thinking quickly. “I’ve never seen him in action, myself, besides the tapes they show on the news. They certainly look like dragons. Or orange snakes.” His voice is pleasant, but Jesse almost has to fight a smile. He loathed his dragons being called _snakes,_ but it was a nickname the news had given them early on in Dragonstrike's appearances.

Sombra hums. “They sure do. I was hoping you’d seen him in the flesh… no one at this party seems to know anything about him.” She pouts, humming again, more a whine now. “How am I supposed to get his number if he comes and goes like the wind, eh?”

Jesse watches Hanzo’s smile turn playful, though he can still see the tightness in it when probably no one else could. “He only seems to appear to criminals, unfortunately, and I doubt he’s giving _them_ his number.”

“Who knows?” Her voice is like honey, cloying and thick on the palate. “Maybe he has a type.”

Hanzo snorts, genuine amusement for just a moment. “Considering he also puts them in prison, I imagine that isn’t the healthiest of relationships.”

She sips her champagne, peering at him over the rim. “Bet it’s fun, though. Good luck tonight, Mr. Shimada. On your bidding. It was nice talking to you. I suppose I’ll go find my date.”

Hanzo beats as gracious a retreat as he can, dipping his head to her as she also slips back into the crowd. He makes his way back upstairs, lackadaisically wandering back over to Jesse with annoyance in his expression.

“Anything?”

“Nope,” Jesse hums, checking the time on his phone and sighing softly to himself. “The name was fake, obviously. But she’s sniffing something out.”

“Clearly. She knows more than she should.” Hanzo leans against the balcony beside him, reaching over to casually fix Jesse’s jacket collar with a thoughtful frown. “There’s nothing else we can do from here. We will need to regroup.” He slides his fingers along the inside of the collar, unfocused and clearly not really thinking about what he’s doing. Jesse makes an effort not to hold his breath, but still only ends up releasing it after Hanzo moves away from him. “Come. Let’s go.”

Jesse obligingly follows Hanzo on the way out the door, though they remain there for much longer than either of them wishes to, stopped by several people wanting to talk to Hanzo Shimada. A few try to chat up Jesse himself, knowing his position as Editor-in-Chief for the Twelve O’Clock Headliner, trying to get in good with the man who’d be reporting on this ball. Hanzo is as impatient with being stopped as Jesse is, but they have to make nice, especially considering the swelling rumors about the two of them being an item.

And ain’t that just a kick in the teeth. It’d make it easier to be seen in public together if they played along, though, so Jesse obligingly smiles at everyone trying to charm Hanzo before finally guiding the CEO out the door with a hand at the small of his back.


	2. I'd Claw at Your Heart

_Thunk._

Jesse watches quietly over the edge of his reading glasses as another arrow lands bullseye.

Hanzo is panting hard, wiping sweat off his forehead with a towel before taking up the bow again. “Next sim,” he calls to the ceiling over the loud, booming music. The targets in the training room spin and twirl around the floor, sliding here and there, behind made up walls and along the ceiling, all littered with holes from arrows and revolvers alike. The room is impressive, all in white and gray, made by he and Hanzo together, with gripless walls to climb and half-walls to leap over and certain areas where the bots fired back at him. It was programmed with several different ways to fight them. Hanzo had done them all hundreds of times, but he never stopped, relied on Jesse to work on the coding to mix things up every so often.

Hanzo returns back to the starting position, hopping lightly on the balls of his feet with his bow held heavy in his left hand. He looks over his shoulder at McCree, who looks back.

After a minute, McCree lifts his chin. “Use the new arrows this time. Go.”

Hanzo leaps from the starting position, forward and around against a wall. Jesse watches from his safe spot in the observation room behind the plexiglass wall, eyes on his partner as the man slides serpentine around the room. He’s dripping sweat, soaked through the white tank top he has on, dark hair sticking to his temples; even if Jesse weren’t watching for the new ways his improved arrows would be used, he wouldn’t be able to take his eyes off him. Hanzo scampers his way up one of the high walls, only his crampons keeping him attached to the surface, the rest of it his pure body strength, and _that_ carrying the bow at the same time. He crests the wall and is already drawing his bow in mid-air, leaping up and sniping one of the targets directly in the bullseye. McCree wolf whistles even though he knows Hanzo is only going to roll his eyes in response, or ignore him.

Hanzo worked tirelessly to keep his body in pique shape, and Jesse quietly enjoys the benefits as he watches. The man is fluid in motion, all smooth movements and deep, powerful shots, striking like an animal and then disappearing around another bend. More than one target he slashes through with his bow as a melee weapon instead of just firing at it, and Jesse makes a mental note to test out his hand-to-hand combat skills later.

Still, he also does as he’s asked. The archer rounds a corner to a new enemy, and obligingly pulls some of McCree’s enhanced arrows out of his quiver, fanning them between his fingers — four in total, though if performed correctly, Hanzo should be able to volley out a series of six by reaching back between shots. _Storm arrows,_ McCree called them, as they were more potent up close and fired quickly, like lightning.

Hanzo always gave him a funny little smile when he introduced a new name for his projects, and more than once had teased him for it, but on the comms he always referred to them by their proper names, and that was what mattered.

Jesse watches with interest as the man fires the volley flawlessly, sinking six arrows into one target’s head, and then stepping over the ‘corpse’ to continue on his way.

“Nice,” he breathes, and Hanzo turns briefly to flash him a smirk through the glass before continuing through his training.

The rest of the training session goes as well as it always does. Hanzo even sets a new record, the storm arrows bringing down enemies more quickly and with less need to aim precisely. He’s been at it for a couple of hours, now, and elects to wrap it up. Jesse pulls out his laptop as Hanzo cools down, and tries not to watch as the archer stretches out his warmed muscle in what he elects to call _workout clothing_ but what Jesse calls _distracting._ Biceps, triceps, hamstrings… it shouldn’t be mouth-drying to watch a man pull off metal boots and rub the soreness out of his calves, and it really shouldn’t be to see him immediately slip into what qualified as old-man houseshoes, but Jesse tended to take every chance he got to find something hot about Hanzo. It’s a hell of a time, spending more of his life here than at his own, barely-used apartment.

After wiping his face down and dragging the towel around his neck, Hanzo moves into the observation room, coming up behind McCree and peering over his shoulder. “Any movement?”

Jesse has to take a minute to respond, feeling Hanzo’s very warm, very sweaty body hovering just behind him. _In white. Soaked through white._ He had to do this stuff on purpose, or he was dumber than Jesse gave him credit for. “Uhh… nah, nothing. We haven’t gotten anything since the tag.”

Hanzo hums disapprovingly, and reaches over to take the mouse from Jesse, scrolling over to pull up the picture that had mysteriously appeared in Hanzo’s work email inbox only the day before.

It’s in an alleyway adjacent to the Met. Brick walls are scored over in bright, fluorescent purple paint; a pixelated skull, and underneath it, the words **EVEN DRAGONS SHOULD FEAR DEATH.** It’s unsettling, to say the least, but also a clear callout. In some ways, it feels like a warning.

Hanzo had been very unhappy with the email. This pixelated skull was a clear callsign of Sombra’s, and the news team who had found the tag only hours after it’d been sent to Hanzo seemed to agree. _“Is this a sign intended for Dragonstrike,”_ the newscaster had said, staring solemnly into the camera, _“and what does it mean for the future of our city?”_

Worse, accompanying the picture was a small line of text, somewhat childishly written in purple font. _You’ve got bigger fish to fry, lagarto. Leave this one alone._

Somehow, translating the pet name had not improved Hanzo’s mood much.

Over the past week, they’d been playing chicken with Sombra. A cursory call to Vaswani the night of the party had found her at home, having not attended the ball at all. Since then, Hanzo had spent most of his evenings out in the city, trying to track down movement of their thief. Sombra was as intelligent and sly as she’d let on, pulling small jobs right out under Hanzo’s nose. These thieveries were never anything huge, paltry sums of a few hundred dollars a piece that she seemed to mostly be stealing from criminals themselves, but it was the principal of the thing. If anything, the petty crimes almost seemed to be taunting.

Dragonstrike would arrive on the scene at the tail end of whatever was happening, and chase Sombra across the city. Jesse had only been able to listen for the majority of these, unless the chases happened to cross by any of the public cameras Jesse had access to. It always ended the same; Hanzo cursing colorfully in McCree’s ear and claiming the thief had disappeared into thin air, always just that little bit out of reach, somehow moving faster than she should be able to run. He was furious, at his wit’s end when it came to hunting her down.

That had stopped a couple of days ago, and then after a short while of suspicious silence, yesterday this tag had appeared.

Jesse wonders what had changed, what she’d gotten into that suddenly made it important for Hanzo to have to worry for his life. Sombra had seemed uninterested in really hurting him, before; had gotten into a few hand to hand scuffles, traded some fire, but even in the rare occasion she had Hanzo on the ropes, she never took the final blow.

It was like she was toying with him, and Hanzo _hated_ being toyed with.

But this was something else. Sombra was trying to keep Hanzo off her trail, now, had stopped the activity.

Hanzo sighs now, still leaning over Jesse’s shoulder. While he’s distracted, McCree can’t really help himself; he lets his eyes roam. The tank top clings to Hanzo’s chest and stomach, see-through in that barely-opaque way that left his tattoo a fancy looking smear under the fabric, gave the suggestion of all his definition without being blatant. It’s maddening, seeing a droplet of sweat make its way down the center of Hanzo’s neck, slide over his collarbone and disappear into his collar. He wants to press his mouth to that spot, just to see what he’d do. If he’d finally stop fighting this pull between them if Jesse showed him how gentle he could be with that throat of his. He pictures brushing his teeth over the man’s pulse point, kissing down to the thick swell of his shoulder, to where the little white dragons twist around each other. Maybe he’d breathe the way he does when he works out—

Hanzo leans back away and folds his arms over his chest. Jesse blinks, but it doesn’t really help; now he’s just being flashed the swirling blue tattoo more prominently. Still, he at least makes an attempt to focus on Hanzo’s face, which looks mildly strained.

“I reek, McCree,” he says, out of nowhere, quietly. It sounds kind of like a challenge.

“It’s clean sweat,” Jesse replies after a second, staring up at him from his chair. “You don’t smell that bad. Ain’t bothering me.” He watches Hanzo’s expression tighten a little, staring down at him with those dark eyes, before the archer shakes his head.

“The storm arrows,” and there’s that funny little smile again, “work well. Perhaps if they were a touch lighter, I could draw them more quickly.”

“If they were any lighter they wouldn’t pack the same punch,” Jesse answers automatically, and Hanzo perks, the little smile slipping into a smirk, the way he gets when he gets Jesse riled up over shop semantics.

“Isn’t it your job to make them pack the same punch?” Hanzo replies, leaning closer again, his eyes shining with good humor.

Jesse leans in, too; he knows he’ll always win this game of “who gets closer” chicken. “That’s why they’re dense, sweetheart. If they were too light they’d ping off armor like nothing. You always get so nervous about new changes and then end up likin’ em. Remember the scatter arrows?”

Hanzo’s amusement turns briefly into a good-natured scowl. “Yes.”

“And remember when you accidentally set one off at your _own_ feet?”

 _“One_ time,” Hanzo groans, and Jesse laughs at the old argument, letting it fade into a soft smile when Hanzo does lean away first, as he knew he would.

“What would you do without me?” Jesse teases, but it comes out softer than he intends it to. More meaningful.

It’s too late to take the words back, and Hanzo, who’d begun scrubbing his hair with the towel, pauses. He turns and meets Jesse’s eyes, and now the moment feels heavy, heavier than probably either of them had intended it to be.

“Best you never let me find out,” Hanzo finally replies. Jesse feels the air curl from his lungs.

“Aye aye,” he says, weakly, and Hanzo gives him a once-over before turning away again, continuing his hair-rubbing.

“I am going to shower,” he says after a moment, and McCree nods at him. He settles for lounging back in his seat and twirling around to face the computer again, if only to make himself not watch as Hanzo and his very visible, very muscular back make their way out of the room and to Hanzo’s big fancy shower.

Knowing full well Hanzo’s AI will let him know if anything happens on the monitoring cams they have set up around the Met or on the police radios, Jesse pulls up The Twelve O’ Clock Headliner’s website, scrolling to the article he’d written about the gala and frowning absentmindedly as he reads through it again, compulsively checking for any typos he’d missed as he goes.

He scrolls to the picture of the gala site taken from the outside that ends the article, lets his eyes drift to the balcony where he and Hanzo had danced together.

It was wild, how they’d ended up here. A story fit for a headline, if Jesse’d ever been allowed to tell it. Hanzo hadn’t been Dragonstrike forever, but he had been when Jesse had met him for the first time. He’d seen McCree trying to help a group of civilians escape from a bank robbery, watched him use Peacekeeper to eventually subdue and take down the robbers himself.

Jesse thinks it’s the fact that he hadn’t killed anyone that made Hanzo not just round him up as a criminal, too.

He’s always been a bit of a tinkerer; after losing his arm back in ‘64 during a gang fight gone wrong, Jesse’s built himself his own prosthetic with a little luck, a ton of scrap, and a whole lotta patience. And maybe _some_ help from a friend or two. It was better than going to the doctor and risking getting thrown in prison. Still, after that, he’d just kept on tinkering. Other prosthetics, but then cars, guns, physical enhancements. Jesse’s current arm is a hell of a lot cleaner and classier than his first go around, and after Hanzo had thanked him for his help, he’d asked about the arm. Seemed impressed when told it was handcrafted.

It’s hard to say how things happened after that. He isn’t sure how Hanzo found him again, just that one day a bonafide superhero had stumbled into his shitty little rinky-dink apartment and asked if he could help repair something. A simple fix on Hanzo’s suit’s chestplate, keeping it from bending inward and stabbing Hanzo in the chest. He’d come back again, a month or two later, and then again after that, different little technical fixes that he didn’t know how to do himself. Always in disguise.

Jesse’d made a joke that if Dragonstrike needed so many patchjobs he oughta just pay him and make it official. Dragonstrike, surprisingly, had agreed, and had given him enough money to get his fledgling reporting hobby off the floor into a real _job_.

It was a few months after that that Jesse figured out who he actually was. A mask slip, of all things. A few death threats and more months later, Hanzo’s dragged Jesse out of his shit apartment and made him buy a _real_ apartment, which then proceeded to be completely ignored when Jesse practically moved into the Shimada Manor.

Hanzo seemed lonely; never took people back to his place, at least not that Jesse could see. Didn’t really have friends, didn’t seem to think he deserved ‘em. Once, very drunk, he’d found Jesse working on some upgrades to his bow and told him about how his brother had been the more technically advanced one between them. How it was his fault Genji was dead.

He hadn’t elaborated, still didn’t talk about it, but Jesse’d never forget the way his eyes went dangerously distant, the way his face had briefly crumpled before he’d turned it away from him. The way his hand went to the brand mark on his tattoo-less shoulder that Jesse had never had the bravery to ask about.

Hanzo had saved his life enough times to lose count of. Jesse had watched Hanzo’s back through so many missions, kept him from so many killing blows, sometimes they blended together.

It was hard not to fall in love with a man that you’d seen so many sides of and who still tried to make you proud of him. Hard not to look into those eyes, stern and brown as a bottle, and want to smooth away the perpetual crease between his brows. To see him deliver mercy and to deliver justice, to murmur in his ear and watch him hear your words. To feel those arms around you, jerked from the jaws of death, and know you’d both go down ripping throats out before you’d let the other person get hurt.

But Hanzo never stopped working, never took a breath, only ever focused on keeping people safe and making up for whatever crimes he’d committed in the past. Jesse understood that, _really._ His gang life was nothing to scoff at; if Hanzo’d met him 10 years earlier he’d have chucked Jesse’s punk ass in prison.

They were the same kind of man. Jesse just did his work to protect Hanzo in the way Hanzo did his work to protect the whole goddamn city.

Sometimes McCree wonders who’s really holding the more precious thing in his hands. The worst part is that isn’t even the worst thought he has when it comes to the two of them. Hanzo’d hate him for thinking like that, for maybe putting him above the safety of other people. Hanzo’d never forgive him for that choice, if he knew. Maybe that’s why this distance yawns between them, an impassable gate, leaving Jesse reaching through the bars after someone who had to put everyone else first.

God, he loves him. He loves him like burning.

It’s no secret; not to McCree, anyway. He’d known it for a long time now. Nothing he could do. Not when Hanzo didn’t love him back.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s days later when there’s a chirp from the ceiling.

Jesse looks up from the whiskey he’d been pouring, a dread settling in his stomach automatically, just _knowing._ Looks like he and Hanzo aren’t gonna be sharing a drink tonight, after all, even though they’d earned it by sparring earlier. “Tomo?” He asks the air, narrowing his eyes at the slight hesitation before the response.

“There’s been unusual movement detected at the Met,” the AI says eventually, voice low and thrumming, gently accented. “Patching you through.”

Jesse curses and sets the bottle of whiskey down, immediately beginning to run for the less civilian-friendly area of the mansion. He meets Hanzo on the way; the archer had been waiting for him in the living room. Now, they share a steely look, both of their jaws tight. It’s a little validating, seeing that Hanzo had also kind of been looking forward to spending time together, but there’s nothing for it now. They got jobs to do.

Jesse slides into his chair with all the little screens in front of him, his designated ‘spot’ when it came time for missions. He’d really have to figure out a way to get a little portable camera on Hanzo one of these days, but nothing quality could survive the huge amount of abuse Hanzo’s armor took every time he got into a brawl. For now, he just had to rely on his earpiece, and the cameras that are now all set up all around the Met. They’d been anticipating this; he flicks on all the screens, scanning quickly for the unusual movement Tomo had mentioned.

Behind him, Hanzo is stripping quickly, getting changed into the Dragonstrike outfit. Jesse would normally be tempted to watch, but he knows what this means. Or, at least, what it could mean. There, he spots it, in the top right screen; movement on the roof. Sombra appears in a black-and-white faze of light, stepping from something that she’s got situated on the roof.

“Sombra’s there,” Jesse confirms, and Hanzo makes an affirmative grunt behind him, sliding armor pieces audibly into place.

Something else catches McCree’s eye. He frowns, leaning up closer to the screen. “... Shit. She ain’t alone.”

Hanzo pauses.

“... She’s got Reaper with her.”

A hiss. “That… complicates things.”

Jesse turns incredulously, standing up and approaching Hanzo — dressed, sans his mask. _“Complicates_ things? Hanzo, that’s two versus one! And one of ‘em is _Reaper.”_

The other man glares up at him, immediately stiffening at his tone. “I am the only one equipped to handle this. It is not as if I can just ignore it.”

Jesse grits his teeth, passing a hand through his hair. Reaper is a villain on another caliber; he’d gone toe to toe with Hanzo several times in the past, had nearly killed him almost as many times. Hanzo’d suffered broken bones, bruises and blood; one time, a close range shotgun blast had knocked him from the roof of a building and sent him bashing his way down into the alley below. It was only because he’d gotten lucky and had his fall broken by a garbage sack laying there, _and_ because they’d been close to a hospital, that he’d survived at all.

Jesse had even tangled with him a few times. Every so often, he’d come along on missions, just backup, stuff where the mission was farther from the mansion than was generally considered safe.

Tangoing with Reaper was a lesson in brute strength. Reaper specialized in up-close fights, which was the same thing Jesse specialized in. The two of them went round and round on the occasions where Hanzo had been busy helping civilians escape, saving people from shit they hadn’t been involved in. Reaper was claws and cloaking, smoking around McCree like some kind of big cat, grace and power in one. McCree’s brute strength and speed with his revolver were one thing; mostly it had to do with outpacing him, keeping enough distance between them that he could aim without getting blasted to bits.

Memorably, Reaper knew his name. His _real_ name; Joel Morricone, his carefully cultivated public persona, was tossed right away. There was something incredibly fucking unsettling about having a spectre’s shotgun pressed up tight and snug to your chest and to feel it lean in to whisper your name. So much hate. So much blazing hate. Twisted, broken, maybe someone he knew once, but Jesse doesn’t know. How could he know, with those eyes like hellfire branding into him, a voice like glass gettin’ dragged over coals. _“Ingrate.”_

Hanzo’d come in and split his head with an arrow a moment later, sending the Reaper howling into smoke, vanishing in a plume. The archer bolting over, checking him over for wounds, asking if he was okay, was all a blur. Jesse hadn’t really been sure how to answer him.

After that, Hanzo got real squirrely about bringing him along on missions; a point of argument several times over.

No matter how often they put him in prison, Reaper always found his way out again, like mist through the bars that held him. He’d disappeared off the grid for a little while, and Jesse’d been on edge the entire time, waiting for him to reappear, stronger than before. It was a goddamn coincidental bitch that he’d show up again with Sombra at his side. Or not coincidental, considering what Sombra seemed to know about Dragonstrike. If she was teaming up with a man like that…

Jesse remembers the paint on the wall. _Even Dragons should fear Death._

“I’m coming with you,” he says, and reaches to begin loading his gun, holstered down here with Hanzo’s even though he rarely used it.

“Absolutely _not,”_ Hanzo snarls, and Jesse nearly flinches from the vehemence of it. He takes a step back, looking down into the bright black of Hanzo’s eyes, and then steps closer again, his own temper flaring.

“Like _hell_ I’m letting you face off against those two by yourself! I can’t do shit from here!”

“You can watch my back!” Hanzo snaps, drawing himself up and, for once, refusing to withdraw. He gets up in Jesse’s face, teeth bared, showing off the little fangs of his canines in a way he rarely got upset enough to do. “Stay here and make sure nothing happens.”

“Last time you went up against that bastard, he damn near blasted your leg off, Hanzo! If I’m there, I can help! You know I can fight just as well as you, why—”

“You are _not going!”_ Hanzo roars.

Jesse does flinch now, eyes widening as he feels static charge in the air, the tingle that signals the arrival of the beasts Hanzo has homed in his arm. The man’s armpiece that covers the tattoo is a bright, ferocious orange, like lava peeking through the cracks of the armor, blazing hot. Hanzo steps closer, grabs McCree by the serape, gives him a shake that’s too gentle.

“You are _not_ going,” he hisses, quieter. “You are _staying here,_ and you are watching my _back,_ and making sure nothing— nothing _happens.”_

Jesse stares down at him, anger burning in his chest, his fists clenching at his sides. “We’re _partners,_ Hanzo. Why the hell are you acting like this? It’s not like I’ve never gone on missions with you before. You’re gonna need my help.”

Hanzo glares up at him, static still sharp in the air, and releases him, stepping away with his hands flexing at nothing. “I can handle it. I have beaten him before. I can do it again. I _need_ you. _Here.”_

There’s something in his voice. Jesse stares at him, tries to get a read, some kind of something. Hanzo doesn’t quite meet his eyes, jaw flexing and gaze somewhere over Jesse’s shoulder. He looks pissed as hell, but more than that, he looks… defensive.

It clicks. The hot anger in Jesse’s chest simmers, undying, but something else joins it; disbelief.

“What? You keepin’ me here because you don’t think I can handle myself? Like I can’t watch your back as well out there?” He steps closer, now, and Hanzo stands his ground, slowly meeting his eyes again. Expression closed, tight.

Jesse stares down at him. Gives a little shake of his head. “No. That’s not it, is it?”

Hanzo says nothing, glaring, neck so stiff he might as well be a ice sculpture.

A breath of hurt. “… You’re being mighty unfair to me, sweetheart.”

“Don’t— I have to go,” is the response he gets, short, angry, turning and snatching up his bow as he passes by it. “Stay here. Watch the cameras. Alert the authorities.”

McCree’s anger spikes again, and he grabs Hanzo by the wrist as he attempts to push past him. Hanzo whirls on him, teeth bared, and Jesse stares down at him and–

He loves him. He _loves_ him.

It all comes out in an exhale, a quiet plea. “Be careful. Please come back. Come back so we can talk about this.”

The archer stares up at him, his curled lip slowly sinking back down, his eyes burning. “Stay here,” he says, in a whisper, and pulls himself from Jesse’s grasp.


	3. I Will Step Into the Ring

“Position?”

Jesse’s in no mood for playing. “They’re on the far side of the building, 250 feet from your current standing. Near the Egyptian exhibit.”

Conversation is clipped and professional. Hanzo obligingly moves further along the rooftop he’s slinking across, only visible to Jesse because the camera is pointed the right way and he knows where he’s looking. To anyone else, Hanzo might as well be a shadow.

“Can you see what they’re doing?”

Hanzo’s voice is soft. “No. Reaper is… mostly stagnant… he appears to be on watch. Sombra is the active party. She is doing something at the glass enclosure… the Temple area.” Jesse hears him let out a quiet noise. “Hacking the security alarms, most likely. I don’t see a vehicle, but I am certain they have some means of escape.”

“What could they want from in there so bad? Why’d it take a man like Reaper to do something like steal? That isn’t really his style.”

“I do not know… whatever it is, it is either very valuable or very personal, I imagine.”

McCree lets out a frustrated sigh that Hanzo doesn’t bother responding to. Instead, Hanzo disappears from the camera frame for a long moment. Jesse scans the cameras he can see, waiting for the man to reappear, on edge and ready to snap from it.

“You have let the police know?”

“Yeah, but you know how it is. Could be 20 minutes before they show up.”

Hanzo finally reappears much closer to the two thieves, a dim shade crouching against the marble wall and peering around the corner at them. After a moment, Jesse watches him silently climb his way into one of the windowsills, giving him just enough high ground to be able to peer around the corner and get a shot off without being seen.

Jesse’s teeth grit with frustration. _I should be there._

Hanzo appears to steady himself in the camera, looking up at the nearest one for a moment, his eyes steely over the mask. He nods, once, and then whips around, firing off one of the sonic arrows into the shadow of the building, silent and smooth. He turns back around the corner, presumably waiting to keep an eye on the two bodies, and then makes his way onto the beveling on the side of the museum and begins creeping closer.

“Careful,” Jesse murmurs, and Hanzo doesn’t say anything.

The archer throws himself into the shadow of the foliage just feet from where Reaper and Sombra are still working at the window, and Jesse has a hard time seeing him.

There’s a breath where nothing happens, where McCree watches Sombra turn to Reaper and nod, and then—

Hanzo lets an arrow careen through the air toward them.

In a flash, Reaper’s hand swipes out, taking the brunt of the arrow in the bicep. He whirls around, levitating from the earth in a horrific black cloud, and laughs, just audible enough for Hanzo’s ear comm to catch it.

“Dragonstrike,” he hisses, all malevolence. Hanzo steps out from his shaded place, all orange and silver in the light, glaring over his mask.

“Reaper.”

“Where’s your sidekick?” Reaper asks with a laugh, swirling closer to Hanzo with all the permeance of fog. He lifts one clawed hand, voice a purr. “I owe him something for the bullet he put in my head. That _hurt.”_ The last word shakes with violence, enough to send a shiver down Jesse’s spine.

Hanzo nocks an arrow, following Reaper’s movements, head angling down and eyes careful. “Nowhere you can reach him. I hope I can be a good enough distraction.”

Reaper rumbles with amusement, the white-bone of his mask tipping back and glowing in the moonlight. “You’ll be a decent appetizer.”

Like lightning, he zooms forward across the grass, grabbing for Hanzo’s throat, still floating. Hanzo snarls, his arrow flying loose and zooming past Reaper’s form. With a hiss of frustration, Hanzo dodges the grab and whips his bow up sideways. It snaps Reaper’s head back with the brunt of the hit, and now Reaper growls, billowing forward and drawing his shotguns.

Jesse’s heart climbs to his throat, just as he notices the movement in the other corner of the screen. “Hanzo! Sombra’s getting in the Temple!”

Hanzo whips his head around. With a hiss, he leaps up, kicking off of Reaper’s chest and sending the man plooming back. In the bare space of time he has, Hanzo turns quick, draws an arrow, fires it at Sombra higher up on the hill. She’s partway through the hole she’s cut in the glass, and turns in time to see the arrow flying toward her, but not fast enough to avoid it slicing past her arm and cutting her open.

 _“Gilipollas!_ I told you to stay away!” Sombra winces as she pulls her way the rest of the way inside, and Hanzo starts to turn and go after her when Reaper fires at him.

Alarmed, Hanzo bolts his way further up the hill. Reaper is hot on his heels, reaching out and snatching Hanzo by the quiver.

“You want to go inside, too?” Reaper’s voice is like boiling lava, gurgling, _wrong._ With that, he yanks up and finally gets his hold on Hanzo’s throat. He chucks Hanzo into the glass, shattering it into a million pieces as his body flies through.

Jesse stands, leaning over the screens, voice sharp. _“Hanzo!”_

A groan. “Looked worse than it was,” Hanzo hisses, and Jesse frantically flicks through his cameras, trying to find an angle where he can see better. There’s not one, leaving his eyes peering through the hole in the glass as Reaper ghosts his way inside after Hanzo.

He feels so _helpless,_ seeing Hanzo climbing to his feet, watching Reaper move in.

“Where’s Sombra?” Hanzo murmurs, regripping his bow and shaking himself enough to pull another arrow out.

Jesse swallows, tracking the other cameras. “Deeper into the Temple exhibit. I can’t see her. Dammit, Hanzo, I should _be_ there!”

Hanzo growls, loosing an arrow into Reaper’s chest and taking the brief moment of reprieve that gives him to back further into the room, out of Jesse’s camera sight. “Stay there.”

“Talking with your beau?” Reaper’s voice is darkly amused, even though the arrow is clearly affecting him. “Cut the cameras.”

Like a blink, all the cameras go out. Jesse leans closer, then slams his fist into the desk. He grits his teeth. “I’m fucking blind here, Hanzo.”

Hanzo’s voice is rough in his ears. “Stay there.” Jesse hears a whorl of noise, the telltale sound of movement that signals Hanzo using his storm arrows. He can hear Reaper’s surprised snarl of pain, and Hanzo moving again, the tap of his feet as it echoes around the presumably huge temple room. “Pursuing Sombra,” he hisses.

“Reaper?”

“Down. For now.”

Jesse stares at the static on the screens, swallows, grits his teeth. “I’m useless right now, honey.”

“You’re keeping me company,” Hanzo replies, a dark undertone to his words. “I can handle this. I’m fine.”

“He’s not _down,_ Hanzo, you know that.”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

“What, like you?”

Hanzo snarls back at him. “McCree.”

_“Sombra, cut the comms.”_

 

* * *

 

 

Hanzo feels a dredge of fright up his spine as the creature shakes back to life behind him. McCree’s voice fizzles into nothing in his ear. He turns, nocking another arrow without thinking and firing it into Reaper’s slowly reforming body.

The black mass gurgles and flinches, but does not stop, taking the arrow and _consuming it._ Hanzo stares, watches the smoke reform into the body of Reaper.

_Sombra._

He turns and pelts after the woman, trying to get out of range of the shotgun-wielding ghost. He doesn’t know where she went, what she’s after, but he has to stop her more than he needs to fight what is surely mostly a distraction.

The dragons snarl and twist in his ear, roaring for blood. _Last resort._

Up ahead, he hears a smattering of gunfire, sees a glow of purple. Hanzo enters the next room of the museum to see Sombra in the back, over the body of a very unlucky, very unconscious guard. She has floating, holographic screens pulled up around her, a scanner on a slab of stone that looks like it has some kind of painting on it. _From Giza, Egypt,_ says the plaque beside it, and Hanzo spares a glance at the art — two people facing off against one man, wearing a black crown and holding a stalk of wheat — before drawing an arrow and aiming it at Sombra’s head.

The woman stares at him from behind one of the purple screens, a tired expression on her face. “You’re not very smart, are you, _legarto?_ Can’t you read?”

“Step away from the console,” he snarls, and Sombra lifts her hands but does not move.

“I know your policy, Dragon. You won’t kill me.”

“Life in prison takes far longer, I assure you,” he snaps back, but Sombra shakes her head, violet eyes trained on his face.

 _“Listen_ to me this time. You don’t kill. Reaper doesn’t have the same problem with the idea.” She tips her head down, her gaze intense. “This doesn’t concern you. Run back to your boyfriend before you become a nuisance.”

Hanzo stares at her, reading the expression on her face, something between a threat and a plea. He flicks his eyes to the comm she has in her ear, then back to her face. She stares for another breath, before her eyes move over Hanzo’s shoulder, and in the brief moment of hesitation Hanzo has, she leaps forward, kicking Hanzo’s knee out from under him.

He hisses, spinning on the ground and kicking away just in time to spot the black cloud entering the room.

 _“Finish extracting it,”_ whispers the cloud, reforming once more with his shotguns drawn and aimed at Hanzo. _“Now!”_

Sombra goes immediately, pushing more buttons on her hologram, but Hanzo back to focusing on the cloud, skittering to his feet and pressing himself backward.

The closer Reaper gets, the more dangerous he becomes, but he moves so _quickly,_ angry and more like a creature than a man now. Hanzo fires arrow after arrow into him, wincing as Reaper retaliates with gunfire. Bullets cut into the meat of his exposed bicep, ping off his armor.

Gasping in pain, Hanzo stares across at the being still moving toward him, arrows sticking from various parts of his body. He just isn’t stopping. Hanzo had never figured out what had happened to him, how he’d turned out this way. It didn’t really matter, he guesses; the only thing that mattered was destroying him for long enough to contain him.

He inhales deep, feels the dragons twisting along inside him, mechanical and spiritual all together. Fear rises up in him, knowing if this doesn’t work, he is all but useless, but this is the only thing he knows how to do. The only thing that might be able to stop this relentless creature. Reaper moves toward him in the billowing black cloud, and Hanzo lifts his bow, aiming his arrow directly between the mask’s empty eyes.

_“Ryu ga wa—”_

Hanzo sees the spark of his dragons, bright orange and pixelated, roaring behind his arrow, rising up from under his sleeve.

Then Reaper is on him, grabbing his hand and bending it back so quickly Hanzo can barely blink. He hears the _snap_ of bone, and for a moment there is just a haze of red behind his eyes, agony roaring its way through his entire body. His bow skitters across the ground as a scream is wrenched from him, and Reaper elbows him hard in the chest, knocking him back and onto the floor.

He is an angry, bubbling thing, the mass that calls itself _death_ coalescing over Hanzo’s body. He looks like he’s partway through falling apart, like Hanzo’s arrows hurt him, but didn’t completely snuff out the light. _“Pest,”_ Reaper snarls, and steps down on Hanzo’s chest.

Hanzo stares up at him, eyes swimming. How had he not been prepared for this? He can kick, tries to, but his legs pass through the swirling smoke; only the boot and Reaper’s head, as ever, are corporeal.

 _“I’m sick of you butting your head into my business, Dragon,”_ Reaper hisses, pressing down with his shoe when Hanzo gets his uninjured hand around the ankle to try and yank him off. Hanzo feels a sinking sense of dread drop like oil into his gut as Reaper levels a shotgun at his head. _“I kept you alive this long from some kind of favor to the ingrate, and because you keep your dog-sniffing to this town. But I’m gonna be here awhile. Better to put you down. He’ll get over it.”_

_Jesse. Jesse._

Hanzo tries to reach over and grab for one of arrows that had fallen onto the ground, fingers scrabbling, anything to jab into him, anything to get away.

 _He never knew. You never told him. He’s going to find you splattered here on the floor of a museum. Like some fucked up art exhibit._ Hanzo can’t reach the arrow, and a noise comes out of him, desperate, pain roaring in his head from his broken wrist.

 _“Pathetic,”_ Reaper purrs, his mask leaning closer. _“Maybe once you’re dead, I’ll get him to come work for me.”_

“Fuck you,” Hanzo spits, and Reaper chuckles.

 _“Alright.”_ The gun recenters, and Reaper tilts his head, red eyes burning through the eyeholes. _“Be a lesson.”_

Hanzo stares up into the gun barrel, breathing hard, and then closes his eyes.

“Draw.”

There’s a gunshot, and with a roar, the pressure on Hanzo’s chest disappears. He blinks up, trying to see through the static, trying to see how he isn’t dead, and watches Reaper swirling in on himself, twisting in and out of mist and existence.

Two more revolver shots. Reaper howls, clutching at his head as the bullets pass through them, and then he is gone, clattering on the ground, only his mask remaining.

Hanzo stares at it, blurrily, the pulsing of his wound and the roaring of the dragons ringing in his head. He turns as slowly as he can, eyes searching, and sees a silhouette in the doorway.

He knows who it is. He’d know that voice anywhere.

“Jesse,” he breathes, staggering as best he can to his knees, then making an attempt to climb to his feet.

[Before he can even get all the way there, McCree is on him, wrapping him in his arms, pressing him tight against his chest to the point he can barely breathe, to the point his hat tips off and hits the floor. Hanzo closes his eyes, another noise of pain pressing out of him, but Jesse doesn’t let go, dipping his head to press against Hanzo’s temple.](https://78.media.tumblr.com/54d6d12530b51c2b6d949e30ee499eea/tumblr_ped2izG52J1xucm13o3_1280.png)

“You fucking— goddamn it, Hanzo, you fucking—”

“I’m sorry,” he manages weakly. Jesse’s arms tighten impossibly more, crushing him. Hanzo ignores the pain in his wrist, pressing his cheek to the rough wool serape Jesse’s got around his shoulders. “I’m sorry. I should have— I should have been prepared—”

Jesse snaps his head back, doesn’t let Hanzo get more than an inch away from him. “Goddammit,” he whispers, hands coming up to cradle Hanzo’s head, peering down into his face. One of his eyes is blazing red, an eerie glow curling off the pupil. Hanzo dazedly wonders if he’d damaged his contact. The metal palm is cool against his cheek; Hanzo leans into it, too exhausted to fight his inclinations just at this moment. He feels secure; his pulse is jumping a mile a minute, his wrist is broken, but he feels safe here. Maybe he has only ever felt safe here, held in McCree’s arms. The only place he could go and, for once, feel like the one being watched over. “Are you alright?”

Hanzo stares back at him. There is more in those eyes than he could ever expect to see turned his way, bottle brown and concerned, and caring for him. Wanting him safe, wanting him out of harm’s way. “Yes,” he says, quietly. Watching McCree, he leans closer, presses his forehead to the other man’s. “I’m sorry. I scared you.”

“You did.” Jesse’s voice is soft.

Hanzo closes his eyes. “I should not keep you from these things just because I care for you more than I should.”

There’s an audible swallow. “No.”

“I worry that if the time comes, I will put you over the safety of other people.” He opens his eyes again, looking up into Jesse’s face. “I am selfish. I want you to be somewhere I know you are safe. I can’t… the thought of losing you… makes me weak.”

“Hanzo.” Jesse’s voice is careful, but there’s something in it that makes Hanzo look away again, look down into the red fabric of his clothing. “Hanzo… you have to trust me to take care of myself. And…” A pause. Hesitance. “... And maybe trust me to take care of you, too. This ain’t a one-way street, sweetheart. It’s not fair to lock me up when if I had my way, you’d be right in that home with me. Safe. Together.”

Hanzo swallows, shaking his head. “I can’t… I can’t do nothing. I cannot be a civilian that does nothing. I have too much… too much to make up for.”

“I know. That’s why I’m not asking you to give this up.” Jesse’s finger comes up, brushes his jaw, cool metal, as if to remind him that he is not so different from Hanzo; they both have crimes to atone for. “I’m asking you to let me help, and not just from a room in your home where I’d… have to watch you die one day.” His voice is rough, pained, tight. “I can’t be a bystander in this anymore, baby.”

The petname makes Hanzo’s throat constrict. He’d break any other man’s arm for calling him something like that, but Jesse had so wormed his way into his life, had been there for so much, for years, now. Hanzo loved the endearments, rare as they were. Even when Hanzo had pushed him away, kept him at arm’s length, he’d treasured the sweet talk, the gentleness, the way he could still see the longing in McCree’s eyes.

He was a bad man, for wanting Jesse to continue pining for him even when he was certain they could never be together. For knowing Jesse cared for him and never outright shutting it down, but also never taking the chance to touch him.

He lets his face fall away from McCree’s, press against his shoulder again. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I know. But I don’t want you to get hurt, either. If you’re with me, we can keep each other safe. You gotta let me be here. Please.”

Jesse noses gently against Hanzo’s temple, runs his fingers through the hair on Hanzo’s nape. Hanzo remembers his teasing about the haircut, how he’d felt strangely less bad about it once Jesse had ribbed him over it.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Okay. Alright.”

He feels the arms around him squeeze, and looks up, so close to Jesse’s face that they’re exchanging breaths. The gunslinger is all gentleness now, looking down at him with stars in his eyes, but sufficiently punished enough for his advances that even when Hanzo is certain he wants to kiss him, he does not. It breaks Hanzo’s heart.

So Hanzo reaches up this time, twining his good hand in Jesse’s hair. Pulls him down to press their mouths together.

It’s hardly a good place for a first kiss. Hardly a good situation.

But Jesse responds after only a moment of stunned disbelief, scooping Hanzo close to him and bringing them impossibly closer together, kissing the breath out of him. Hanzo feels something like giddiness press out of him, bursting into a small laugh, and Jesse responds in kind, until the pair of them stop kissing and smile at each other instead.

McCree finally pulls back enough to kick the mask that houses Reaper inside. “Fucker,” he snipes, and Hanzo’s brain catches up.

“Sombra?” he asks, whirling to where the woman had been standing before the fight began. All evidence of her being there is gone – including part of the slab of stone. Only the man with the stalk of wheat remains, looking strangely lonely in the aftermath.

“She was gone by the time I showed up,” McCree explains, a touch of guilt in his voice. “For some reason I just couldn’t find myself caring that much about her.”

Hanzo hums, thinking after the woman, the warning, and the stone.

After a moment, he turns back to McCree.

“My wrist is broken.”

_“What?”_

 

* * *

 

 

_“... Authorities say that while four museum guards were injured, they are all expected to make full recoveries. While we have been unable to recover any footage of the break-in, the criminal ‘Reaper’ was taken into custody three days ago after being given to authorities by none other than New York’s resident hero, Dragonstrike. The NYPD says they’ll keep us updated on the story of recovering the stolen piece of art from the Temple of Dendur…”_

Hanzo drinks from his cup of tea and sets it part-way down on the cast wrapped around his left hand. He sighs softly at the television, slouching back against the cushions and looking over at the tv remote.

He might try to use the Force to pull it to him with his mind, but there’s no one there to prove it, and it doesn’t work, anyway.

Luckily, someone with both operable arms walks in a moment later.

The cowboy, dressed in sweats and a gray t-shirt that did wonders for his arms, walks around the couch, humming quietly. He pauses only to give the new wolf-and-sparrow painting hanging on the wall nearby a funny little smile and tap with his fingers, before making a face at the news.

Jesse plops down beside him on the couch, immediately draping one arm around Hanzo’s shoulders and reaching for the remote with the other. “Still nothing?”

“Still nothing,” Hanzo confirms, and, after a moment, burrows a little closer against McCree’s side. Jesse says nothing, but the small, bashful smile he holds for a second is well worth the embarrassment of admitting he liked the comfort. Jesse smells like honeysuckle and gunpowder, a strange combination that came from showering after target practice. Hanzo thinks he could get used to it.

“Ah…” After a moment, though, Jesse’s smile fades. “... So I ran the tests from your suit three times. It’s coming back the same every time. DNA scanners are saying it’s… he’s Gabriel Reyes.”

Hanzo looks at him quietly. Jesse’d never gone into detail, but apparently Reyes had been someone important in his younger life. Had snatched him out of the gang life, made him realize there was more out there, got him started down the path of actually doing something with his mechanical skills and ability to write.

He looks stunned, upset. Hanzo sighs softly, and sets down his tea, reaching up to cradle the other man’s cheek.

“We will figure it out,” he murmurs, leaning in to press it Jesse’s temple. “I promise, as soon as I can work again. Together. I’ll be beside you every step of the way; we can do whatever you’d like with it.”

Jesse smiles faintly, tipping his head and pressing his lips to Hanzo’s cheek. “I know. Just means I gotta take care of you _even harder.”_

Hanzo snorts, playfully pushing Jesse’s face away with his hand. “Then do it by getting me more tea.”

“Sure you’re not craving something else?” Jesse wiggles his eyebrows, and Hanzo cannot fight the smile threatening his face for long.

“Ugh, if you insist. Put sugar in it as well.”

Jesse laughs, and leans in to kiss him, tipping his face up and running his thumb over Hanzo’s cheekbone as he does so. Sparks glow under Hanzo’s skin, and he hums into it. He still isn’t used to this; the affection, the way Jesse has taken every opportunity to get close and touch him and hold him.

He thinks he wouldn’t mind getting used to it.

“More,” he murmurs, when Jesse begins to pull back, and Jesse grins and kisses him again. “One more.” Another kiss. “Mmh. One more.”

Jesse beams, the shadows banished from behind his eyes for now. “Tea’s gonna get cold.”

Hanzo finds, for once, he doesn't care about the tea, the news, or anything else. “Let it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's a wrap, folks!
> 
> Please go give some love to [the art post](http://poes.tumblr.com/post/177611803042/misterghostfrog-title-a-mask-for-you) on tumblr!!! There's a piece there that didn't show up here!
> 
> I’ve deliberately left a couple things open to interpretation or later expansion in this fic bc I kind of… love this universe? And am considering coming back to it sometime if it’s well-received. Trust me; Reaper really needed that stone slab.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, kudos make me smile, comments make me frantically grab my phone every time it buzzes!
> 
> The song this fic title and chapter titles reference is ["I'm Your Man" by Leonard Cohen,](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOnXe8ttmjY) because I listened to it a LOT while writing this, hehe.
> 
> Check me out on [twitter](http://twitter.com/leomundstinyhut) (where I talk SO MUCH) and [tumblr](poes.tumblr.com) (where asks always make my day)! Don't forget to go give love to [my partner](http://misterfrogeyes.tumblr.com) as well!
> 
> Thanks again! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Find me at my [twitter](https://twitter.com/leomundstinyhut) and [tumblr!](https://poes.tumblr.com)


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